Canadians aren't
totally duped on free trade, but Trudeau counts on Canadians to trust him on
this. -- Trudeau can get away with this because of his success in projecting a
"Father Knows Best" almost Messiah-like image, framed with his acting
skills.

At the generic level,
these agreements place national corporate tax systems in a perpetual race to
the bottom, leaving governments without the necessary finances to address inequality. Rather they contribute to greater inequality. The Trudeau administration is most
comfortable with this unfairness for the majority of Canadians.

As for the supposed
benefits for the population at-large stemming from NAFTA, they have not
materialized. The economic plight of the
majority have not improved in the last 30 years or more.

One has only to look
to the US where similar patent rules apply. There,
high drug prices and monopolistic protections have resulted in treatment
rationing, prescriptions going unfilled and severe impacts on family/individual
budgets.

Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)
Clauses

Like NAFTA , the TPP
and CETA contain clauses on Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) systems,
which effectively allow a foreign corporation to sue a national government in
the event that the nation's environmental; First Nations; labour and economic
stability initiatives; or other government actions impede the company in
question from maximizing its profits -- In this way profits trumps sovereignty,
specifically, profits taking precedence over the best interests of the nation
regarding the common good, or as we say in Canada, "peace, order and good
government."

While we would
consider it unthinkable that a foreign citizen could influence the development
of Canadian laws and regulations, CETA offers foreign corporations such rights. In other words, a foreign company would have
the privileged opportunity have a say on laws drawn up to serve the best interests
of Canadians, Canadian companies, and, more
generally , Canadian economic and sustainable development initiatives. As a case in point, this provision would
re-open the doors for the export of Canadian water.

Bulldozer Communications Techniques

Notwithstanding the
known concerns of progressive Canadians on these agreements, Chrystia Freeland would like Canadians to believe that 1) her
signing of the TPP in New Zealand in Feb 2016 does not make the TPP a done deal for Canada, 2) Parliament would
need to ratify the deal and 3) consultations would be held with Canadians on
the agreement before any such ratification.

On item 1 above, in
fact, ratification of the deal is Cabinet's
task, not that of the Parliament.

Questions are allowed
at these hearings, but on the basis of one of these meetings, one in Montreal where
the Council of Canadians managed to be present, the Council learned
that none of the questions raised actually get answered. Regarding the maximum of one day's public
notice for these consultations, the rationale offered was that MPs have busy
schedules!

True, the House of
Commons Standing Committee on International Trade will be holding hearings in
various cities in Canada. But the press release on the purpose of
these hearings reads as
follows: “The Committee’s primary objective is to assess the extent to which
the agreement, once implemented, would be in the best interests of
Canadians.”

Evidently, the issue for the Trudeau government is not
whether the agreement should be ratified or not, but rather how to manage the
message to Canadians to the effect that TPP is good for them and "Father
knows best."

Part II: Micro-economics, Air Canada Middle
Class Maintenance Jobs, a Case History

Absolving of Air Canada of Obligations on 2600
Middle Class Aircraft Maintenance Jobs in Canada

On the more day-to-day
governing level, the mindset favouring corporate rule by the Trudeau Liberals
is well-reflected in Bill C-10.

Bill C-10 is not a
familiar legislative initiative for most Canadians. That's because the Liberals
did everything possible to sweep this initiative under the rug. The Bill was passed, with closure imposed,
Harper style, with little time for debate in the House of Commons. And a tie vote in the House was broken in
favour of the Liberals, by the Speaker, who cast the deciding vote.

Why all this fuss to
shove this Liberal legislative change under the carpet? The answer is that this law was about the
abandonment of 2500 middle class aircraft maintenance jobs to accommodate Air
Canada's request to modify the legislation that applied to Air Canada dating back to its privatization in
1988. With the changes put into law, Air Canada would no longer be obligated to
undertake its aircraft maintenance in Montreal , Mississauga and Winnipeg.

All of this was
followed up with the January 2016 agreement with the CEO of Air Canada, Calin Rovinescu, to reward him for his great
work in transferring jobs outside of Canada with a minimum of $3M/year in annual income. Prior
to that, in 2015, Air Canada approved an increase in his retirement guaranteed income by 90%, to reach
$800,000/year.

The legislation
governing the privatized Air Canada was supposed to have assured that the
disadvantages of privatization, with respect to the preservation of middle
class jobs in Canada, would not come into play.
Justin Trudeau merely completed the task of abandoning middle class
Canadian jobs and interests that the privatization legislation was supposed to prevent.

Through all this, the
public had been led to believe that this was all part of a trade off to
encourage Air Canada to purchase 45 Bombardier C Series aircraft that would
ultimately be serviced in Montreal.
Unfortunately, all the indications are such that this was just a
rumour. In reality, it was soon
discovered that once more Air Canada has a free reign to do as it feels, to
transfer jobs outside of the country.

With the cat now out
of the bag, Air Canada corrected the originally intended false impressions by
explaining that the maintenance of the C Series in Canada would be for the structure of the aircraft
only, the engines to be
excluded from maintenance work in Canada.

Part III: Epilogue

Now one has to wonder
how much else is being kept from public scrutiny in keeping with the principles
of "Father knows best" and corporate rule, the Trudeau government
trade mark.

Canadians aren't
totally duped on free trade, but Trudeau counts on Canadians to trust him on
this. -- Trudeau can get away with this because of his success in projecting a
"Father Knows Best" almost Messiah-like image, framed with his acting
skills.

At the generic level,
these agreements place national corporate tax systems in a perpetual race to
the bottom, leaving governments without the necessary finances to address inequality. Rather they contribute to greater inequality. The Trudeau administration is most
comfortable with this unfairness for the majority of Canadians.

As for the supposed
benefits for the population at-large stemming from NAFTA, they have not
materialized. The economic plight of the
majority have not improved in the last 30 years or more.

One has only to look
to the US where similar patent rules apply. There,
high drug prices and monopolistic protections have resulted in treatment
rationing, prescriptions going unfilled and severe impacts on family/individual
budgets.

Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)
Clauses

Like NAFTA , the TPP
and CETA contain clauses on Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) systems,
which effectively allow a foreign corporation to sue a national government in
the event that the nation's environmental; First Nations; labour and economic
stability initiatives; or other government actions impede the company in
question from maximizing its profits -- In this way profits trumps sovereignty,
specifically, profits taking precedence over the best interests of the nation
regarding the common good, or as we say in Canada, "peace, order and good
government."

While we would
consider it unthinkable that a foreign citizen could influence the development
of Canadian laws and regulations, CETA offers foreign corporations such rights. In other words, a foreign company would have
the privileged opportunity have a say on laws drawn up to serve the best interests
of Canadians, Canadian companies, and, more
generally , Canadian economic and sustainable development initiatives. As a case in point, this provision would
re-open the doors for the export of Canadian water.

Bulldozer Communications Techniques

Notwithstanding the
known concerns of progressive Canadians on these agreements, Chrystia Freeland would like Canadians to believe that 1) her
signing of the TPP in New Zealand in Feb 2016 does not make the TPP a done deal for Canada, 2) Parliament would
need to ratify the deal and 3) consultations would be held with Canadians on
the agreement before any such ratification.

On item 1 above, in
fact, ratification of the deal is Cabinet's
task, not that of the Parliament.

Questions are allowed
at these hearings, but on the basis of one of these meetings, one in Montreal where
the Council of Canadians managed to be present, the Council learned
that none of the questions raised actually get answered. Regarding the maximum of one day's public
notice for these consultations, the rationale offered was that MPs have busy
schedules!

True, the House of
Commons Standing Committee on International Trade will be holding hearings in
various cities in Canada. But the press release on the purpose of
these hearings reads as
follows: “The Committee’s primary objective is to assess the extent to which
the agreement, once implemented, would be in the best interests of
Canadians.”

Evidently, the issue for the Trudeau government is not
whether the agreement should be ratified or not, but rather how to manage the
message to Canadians to the effect that TPP is good for them and "Father
knows best."

Part II: Micro-economics, Air Canada Middle
Class Maintenance Jobs, a Case History

Absolving of Air Canada of Obligations on 2600
Middle Class Aircraft Maintenance Jobs in Canada

On the more day-to-day
governing level, the mindset favouring corporate rule by the Trudeau Liberals
is well-reflected in Bill C-10.

Bill C-10 is not a
familiar legislative initiative for most Canadians. That's because the Liberals
did everything possible to sweep this initiative under the rug. The Bill was passed, with closure imposed,
Harper style, with little time for debate in the House of Commons. And a tie vote in the House was broken in
favour of the Liberals, by the Speaker, who cast the deciding vote.

Why all this fuss to
shove this Liberal legislative change under the carpet? The answer is that this law was about the
abandonment of 2500 middle class aircraft maintenance jobs to accommodate Air
Canada's request to modify the legislation that applied to Air Canada dating back to its privatization in
1988. With the changes put into law, Air Canada would no longer be obligated to
undertake its aircraft maintenance in Montreal , Mississauga and Winnipeg.

All of this was
followed up with the January 2016 agreement with the CEO of Air Canada, Calin Rovinescu, to reward him for his great
work in transferring jobs outside of Canada with a minimum of $3M/year in annual income. Prior
to that, in 2015, Air Canada approved an increase in his retirement guaranteed income by 90%, to reach
$800,000/year.

The legislation
governing the privatized Air Canada was supposed to have assured that the
disadvantages of privatization, with respect to the preservation of middle
class jobs in Canada, would not come into play.
Justin Trudeau merely completed the task of abandoning middle class
Canadian jobs and interests that the privatization legislation was supposed to prevent.

Through all this, the
public had been led to believe that this was all part of a trade off to
encourage Air Canada to purchase 45 Bombardier C Series aircraft that would
ultimately be serviced in Montreal.
Unfortunately, all the indications are such that this was just a
rumour. In reality, it was soon
discovered that once more Air Canada has a free reign to do as it feels, to
transfer jobs outside of the country.

With the cat now out
of the bag, Air Canada corrected the originally intended false impressions by
explaining that the maintenance of the C Series in Canada would be for the structure of the aircraft
only, the engines to be
excluded from maintenance work in Canada.

Part III: Epilogue

Now one has to wonder
how much else is being kept from public scrutiny in keeping with the principles
of "Father knows best" and corporate rule, the Trudeau government
trade mark.

Saturday, 16 January 2016

ONES TO WATCH: Enel's Italian revolutionary

Francesco Starace: 'Big is bad. Our strategy is much more flexible and modular then it was before, and more adaptable to the world we live in'

Francesco Starace is promising nothing short of a “revolution” at Enel this year as Italy’s biggest utility adopts a groundbreaking business model that moves it decisively away from fossil fuels.

The 60-year-old chief executive is putting renewable energy at the heart of the state-owned company’s growth plans. In early 2016, it plans to take 100% control of renewables subsidiary Enel Green Power (EGP), clawing back the 31% of shares it doesn’t currently own, before adding 7.7GW to EGP’s existing 10.6GW of capacity by 2019. Latin America and hybrid facilities — in which two different renewables sources are utilised to create cost-saving synergies — will be key focuses.

Enel has also pledged to become carbon-neutral by 2050, close down 23 coal power stations in Italy, and to never build another coal-fired plant — scrapping plans for two new facilities in Italy and Chile. Starace recently went so far as describing coal power as “technologically obsolete”. It is a major departure for a company that supplied 19% of its energy from coal in 2014.

Starace — who was chief executive of EGP from its launch in 2008 until he waspromoted to the Enel top job in May 2014 — is one of the most green-minded utility bosses in the world.

Unlike other utility chief executives, he does not believe that nuclear and natural gas are the answer to the world’s problems. The new generation of nuclear plants, such as the planned Hinkley Point C in the UK, he says, are “typically nightmares of engineering and construction” that are “incredibly complex and very, very difficult to complete”. He believes that building gas plants will only make sense until about 2025, while carbon capture and storage schemes “simply don’t work”.

And unlike the shift towards renewables by other major European utilities, Enel’s move is not born out of urgent necessity. The likes of E.ON and RWE in Germany have needed to embrace green energy because their business models have become unprofitable — their over-reliance on fossil-fuel plants that are increasingly being switched off to allow low-cost renewable power onto the grid has resulted in significant financial losses.

As the Italian grid is not so heavily saturated with wind and solar, Enel does not need to take such a leap now. But Starace has realised that the rise of renewables is inevitable, so he is future-proofing his company today. It is a move that is likely to be hugely influential among utilities globally.

“We have to acknowledge that the climate clock is ticking and time is of the essence,” Starace told a conference in October. Conventional fossil-fuel and nuclear plants are “a trap”, he explained. “A trap for companies to die.”

He does acknowledge, however, that Enel’s transition away from coal and nuclear will not be without some pain.

“You need to be willing to say, ‘Even if it’s my own arm, I’ll cut it off if it’s not needed’,” Starace said. “Big is bad. Our strategy is much more flexible and modular then it was before, and more adaptable to the world we live in.”

Other utilities — many of which are unsure of their role in the future energy landscape — will be watching keenly to see how Enel’s energy transition plays out.

Global Momentum: No Excuse for the Liberals not
Having a Plan in their Platform and/or Post Election Ideas/Proposals for
Discussion

To begin, there is an incredible momentum among Canada's
competitors to the effect that they are light years ahead of Canada on the
migration to a green economy. Therefore there
is no excuse for the Liberals not having an outline of proposals to achieve
significant greenhouse gas targets by way of applying foreign models to
Canadian contexts.

For the first time since the post World War II
period, thanks to the climate policies of China, the world's largest energy
consumer, Europe, the US and other countries, demand for fossil fuels is
flattening, as the world moves away from a resource-based economy.

Concurrently, nations around the globe are intensifying
their actions on climate change and the costs of clean technologies are
declining rapidly.

Together these trends are jeopardizing the
prospects for increasing global oil supplies, particularly supplies derived
from expensive to extract reserves, such as those of the tar sands. This implies the demise of the business model of the oil industry that is based on 1) strong growth and 2) high oil prices to
reflect favourable supply-demand economics.

In keeping with these trends, China's emissions and coal consumption declined in 2014. More specifically, these
results pertain to China being the world's largest investor in clean
technologies, having installed 34 gigawatts of new solar and wind capacity in
2014 and invested $89.5B in clean energy investments in that year. In effect, China's new clean electrical
generation capacity added in 2014 represents 70% of current total Hydro-Quebec
electrical production capacity, but China installed this order of magnitude of
clean energy new capacity in a single year!

And then there is the
acceleration of the momentum towards zero and low emission vehicles. The Government of China has a target of 30%
of vehicle purchases to be electric beginning 2016 and the production of 2M
eco-vehicles/per year by 2020.

Recognizing the
writing is on the wall, UBS, the world's largest private bank, and the Chief Economist of BP, Spencer Dale, have both concluded that the fossil fuel era is
over, with UBS saying that the green economy will be the emerging new economic paradigm
by 2020 and BP's chief economist concluding that the majority of world's oil
reserves are unlikely to ever be exploited.

And the job numbers are staggering making the
green sectors the highest job creation and growth sectors of our times, and
this will only increase as countries around the globe become more aggressive on
climate change. There are now 3.5M jobs
in the green sectors in Europe and there are 1.6M people working in China's
solar energy sector and another 356000 in China's windpower sector. Have a look at the clean energy job figures on
page 63 of the report of The Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century.

Trudeau and Global Green Economy Development

That Trudeau's model
for economic stimulus is infrastructure funding is troubling, a post World War
II economic development model entailing spending money on increasing
dependencies on personal vehicles as well as public transit.

If Trudeau was in tune
with the emerging new economy, the lion's share of stimulus spending would go
towards tomorrow's jobs or green economics.

All of the above
comments concerning recent Trudeau's statements on instrumentalizing the
environment to win the support of the Obama administration on pipelines are consistent
with Dion's recent contributions to Liberal green-washing. Stéphane Dion, as the new Minister of Foreign
Affairs, and in reaction to Obama's rejection of Keystone, said we are going to
need oil anyway.

The Liberal Failure Legacy on Climate Change:
Due to a Lack of Commitment not an Absence of Ideas on How to Achieve Kyoto
Protocol Objectives

Turning to your
assumption to the effect that the Liberals can be excused for not knowing how
to achieve significant reductions of greenhouse gases (GHG) when they were previously
in power, it must be pointed out that the economic revolution towards the
migration to a green economy began while the Liberals were in power. This contrasts with the indications of your
article of November 15, 2015 implying that the Liberal government can be
excused for not knowing how to significantly achieve Kyoto GHG reduction targets.

By 2005, the EU had
already achieved a 15% reduction in GHGs towards its 2020 target of the 20%
reduction in GHG's by 2020. Well on
their way for achieving the 2020 EU GHG reduction targets, the European Wind Energy
Association predicts that 25 of the 28
member states would meet or exceed their 2020 targets of a 20% reduction of GHG
be 2020. In other words, contrary to the Liberal nonsense, Canada was not
suffering from a lack of good information on what needs to be done to achieve its
Kyoto targets.

The European Union has since set a 2030 target
of the 40% reduction in GHGs.

More important as a
former Government of Canada employee 1) who's experience includes sustainable
development policies, legislation, programs and projects and 2) having lived
through several Liberal climate change action plans, I can attest that Stéphane
Dion never had a serious strategy to achieve the Kyoto target.

So it is no wonder
that during the former Liberal reign emissions went up to 18.5% above 1990
levels by 2012. Indeed, Liberals were so lax that they allowed for a voluntary
policy for vehicle manufacturers on automobile fuel consumption compliance. This voluntary program allowed for the Canadian
fuel consumption data, that were supplied by vehicle manufacturers without
third party verification, to be way better than the fuel consumption for the
same vehicles in the US. This skewed the
Canadian numbers on manufacturer-specific corporate average fuel consumption for
vehicles sold in a given year.

The aforementioned lax approach on automobile fuel consumption was consistent with my Government of Canada employee experience associated with my sustainable development initiatives while the Liberals were in power,
up until the arrival of the Harper administration. Put bluntly, 100% of the
time, not 99%, when public interests and
private interests were at odds, the
Liberals always chose private interests.
Accordingly, it came as no surprise when it was revealed that Justin
Trudeau co-campaign chair up until the last days of the election campaign, was Daniel
Gagner, a TransCanada pipelines lobbyist.

Unfortunately,
Louis-Gilles Francouer, formerly the environmental journalist of Le Devoir and
now a member of BAPE, was the only
journalist during the era of the former Liberal government that wrote an
article deflating the Stéphane Dion green balloon. My own article on this and found above,
pertaining to my perspective as a former Government of Canada employee during
that era, goes into greater depth than the Francouer article.

Conclusions

Bringing us back to
the present, our competitors are so much more advanced than Canada on the green
economy that Canada, if it so chooses, can have the advantage of looking at global models to-date, for inspiration for a fast-forward plan to catch up.

Thus it is pathetic
that the Liberals went into the 2015 election indicating, and Christina McKenna
subsequent to the election claimed, that the Liberals have no plan but would
talk to the provinces and quickly come up with one by February 2016.

I say pathetic because acquiring inspiration from examples around the globe need not be daunting. On my own, I have
produced a 45 page document on guidelines for a Canadian migration to a green
economy that 1) constitutes a very comprehensive and
synergistic action plan based on green economy models from around the
globe which have been transformed into applications for a Canadian context, while
incorporating analyses on how best to learn from the strengths and weaknesses
of foreign models; and 2) integrates
my Government of Canada experience, up until my retirement in June 2012,
a) regarding sustainable development policies, legislation, programs, projects
and other related initiatives and b) pertaining to the workings of the federal
government and federal-provincial relations; what has been tried; what works;
what doesn't; what needs to be changed to achieve effectiveness; and what gaps
need to be filled.

To wrap up,
comparisons of the Liberals' past record and current/recent statements indicate
a continuation of green-washing rather than structured effective strategies. As such, the Liberal lack of substance on
climate policies is not, as you suggested in your article, comforting.

That Trudeau's new
improved theme to the effect that a better environmental record will make it
easier to market tar sands exports is not comforting.

That Trudeau
infrastructure/economic stimulus offers little to prepare Canada for the new
economy, green economics, is not comforting.

Accordingly the jovial Emmanuelle Latraverse
report on the Téléjournal of November 23, 2015 on the federal-provincial
meeting to the effect that a better Canadian environmental record will help
Canada in marketing its oil, represents just one more journalist falling into
the trap of Liberal green-washing and Trudeaumania.

Indeed, there isn't any good excuse for
promising to develop a climate plan in crisis mode based on fast-forward
consultations with the provinces, a non-leadership plan that appears to be more
like a continuation of the Liberal green-washing legacy.

Consequently your insinuation that the Liberals
will pull an amazing rabbit out-of-a-hat for February 2016 is in itself amazing
and primarily based on packaging/appearances rather than on content. The Liberals are deficient on tackling climate
change.

Monday, 5 October 2015

Standing at the Blackspring Ridge wind farm 200km outside of Calgary, its 166 Vestas turbines tracing giant circles in the prairie sky, there’s a sense of being at the gateway to a new energy future for Canada’s oil-sands province.By Karl-Erik Stromsta in Calgary

Friday, September 25 2015

Updated: Monday, October 05 2015

Here, after all, is a province with enormous wind and solar resources, cheap land, an enterprising spirit, growing demand for power courtesy of Alberta’s controversial tar sands, and a large and clever energy industry keen to invest in renewables (while also greening its image).

Yet in reality Alberta’s renewables market is in pitiful shape. The 300MW Blackspring Ridge is something of an anomaly, a result of now-defunct support mechanisms. Just a handful of mostly small wind farms are being built in the province and the queue of development-stage projects awaiting interconnection is dwindling as frustrated developers walk away. And with just 5MW of PV capacity, Alberta’s solar market never got started in the first place.

Thankfully, a possible saviour has appeared in the form of newly elected premier Rachel Notley, whose left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) won a shock victory in this spring’s provincial election on a pledge to clean up and diversify Alberta’s hydrocarbon-dependent economy. Notley’s win ended 44 consecutive years of provincial rule by the centre-right, oil-mad Conservatives, the party of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Although the NDP ran on unambiguous pledges to phase out coal while encouraging renewables, Notley has been short on specifics since taking office. Her government is readying a series of major climate and energy announcements set to coincide with the high-stakes UN climate talks this year in Paris.

Predictably, Notley has been met with a wail of warnings about undermining Alberta’s oil sector, the province’s long-time paymaster.

No-one knows exactly how the chips will fall. But it’s clear that big changes are afoot in Alberta, politically and perhaps culturally too, and in almost any scenario renewable energy stands to be a beneficiary.

There are many reasons why Alberta is a hostile place for renewables developers today, starting with the province’s deregulated power market — which is unique in Canada.

Unlike the other large provinces, whose power markets all have state-run procurement bodies at their centre, Alberta runs a purely competitive wholesale electricity market. It has no feed-in tariff, no renewable portfolio standard (RPS), and a carbon price that is laughably low.

It is difficult for renewables developers to secure off-take agreements in Alberta, which in turn makes it difficult to finance projects, industry sources say. Unsurprisingly, then, coal and natural gas supply about 90% of Alberta’s electricity.

Enbridge, the Calgary-based pipeline giant, owns Blackspring Ridge with EDF EN Canada, and would like to build more renewables in Alberta. But it doesn’t make sense to do so in the current market, says Lino Luison, vice-president for green power, transmission and emerging technology.

“Texas is a deregulated market, too, but there are plenty of off-takers there who will sign long-term contracts for renewable projects,” Luison tells Recharge. “That’s what’s missing here in Alberta.”

Alberta has a respectable 1.5GW of wind in place today, the third-highest among Canada’s provinces, and more than neighbouring British Columbia, which has a larger and more green-minded population.

Yet nearly all of Alberta’s wind was built on the back of support mechanisms that no longer exist — including a lapsed federal wind incentive — and, as in the cases of Blackspring Ridge and the 150MW Halkirk, Alberta’s two largest wind farms, the ability to generate renewable-energy credits and sell them in California.

Compounding the challenges of Alberta’s spot market is the fact that most of the province’s 950 or so wind turbines were built across the same windy region in the south. That means they come on line and generate power simultaneously — flooding the wholesale market and further depressing prices.

Until the election, Alberta’s government was largely indifferent to the plight of renewables. The Conservatives paid lip service to the sector, but much of their plan to “green the grid” centred on fantasies of carbon capture and storage (CCS).

“It’s fair to say that you couldn’t have done less for renewables than what was done in the past by the provincial government,” says Grant Arnold, chief executive of Calgary-based developer BluEarth Renewables.

A new threat has emerged recently in the form of depressed oil prices, which have hit Alberta’s economy hard and clouded the picture for future power demand.

Taken together, such factors paint a bleak picture for renewables in Canada’s “energy province”.

There used to be more than 5GW of development-stage wind waiting for a grid connection in Alberta, says Robert Hornung, chief executive of the Canadian Wind Energy Association. Today the figure is down to about 1.5GW.

The shrinking pipeline is “a reflection of investors either feeling like they have better opportunities elsewhere or just lacking confidence that they’ll be able to find a way to finance and build projects in Alberta”, he says.

“As a destination for wind investment, Alberta has become less attractive over time.”

Turning things around will not be easy, but many of the necessary pieces seem to be falling into place.

To spark a vibrant large-scale renewables market, developers need some way to secure bankable power-purchase agreements. Many in the industry believe an RPS would be the simplest way of making that happen; others talk of a stiff carbon tax.

In normal times, one would laugh at such suggestions, but these are not normal times in Alberta.

The provincial election has been described as one of the worst electoral defeats in Canadian history. After more than four decades in charge, the Conservatives’ share of seats in the legislature fell from 70% to 10%. The NDP held four seats in the provincial legislature beforehand; now they hold 54 seats — or 62% of the total.

Climate and energy may not have been Notley’s top priorities during the election, but the NDP did not hide its feelings on the matters. Among its explicit campaign promises were reducing Alberta’s greenhouse gas emissions, reviewing the amount of tax paid by oil companies, accelerating the phase-out of coal, and boosting renewables. They also promised to stop spending public money on lobbying for controversial pipeline projects such as Keystone XL and Northern Gateway, and to end the Conservatives’ “costly and ineffective CCS experiment” — diverting the money instead towards public transport.

Almost immediately after taking power, the NDP announced that Alberta’s carbon price will double by 2017, a symbolically important gesture even if the price will still be too low to result in meaningful emissions reductions.

Most importantly, Notley convened a panel of stakeholders and experts to undertake a wholesale rethink of Alberta’s carbon strategy. The results will be revealed in time for the UN climate talks in Paris in December, with new policies likely to be in place by early 2016. Canada’s wind and solar sectors are working furiously behind the scenes to press their case for a central role in Alberta’s energy future.

Vestas, the dominant supplier of wind turbines in Alberta, has had recent meetings in the province, says David Hardy, the company’s senior vice-president for sales, based in Portland, Oregon. “There’s a lot of optimism,” he says.

For all the excitement over Alberta’s new leadership, it’s important to keep realistic expectations. Notley is not going to disembowel the oil sands: the economic opportunity they represent is simply too large, and issues she cares deeply about, such as healthcare and childcare, benefit from a thriving oil sector.

Even accounting for recent low oil prices, market researcher IHS predicts production from the oil sands will rise 30% by 2020, reaching 2.9 million barrels per day — nearly twice as much as Norway produces today.

Yet bringing major changes to Alberta’s energy sector may not be as difficult as it would first appear.

For starters, low oil prices actually give the NDP some political cover. Albertans are tired of their boom-and-bust oil economy, and crave economic diversification. The 20 permanent jobs created by the Blackspring Ridge wind farm may not sound like much, but they count for enough in nearby Carmangay (population 367) that a turbine blade sits in the middle of the village like a war-hero statue.

Albertans are also sick of being cast as climate villains. The province’s climate infamy is not undeserved: its per-capita emissions are five times higher than Ontario’s, and by 2020 its emissions may equal those from Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia combined.

Alberta has two options for making a meaningful dent in its emissions in the medium term, says Ben Thibault, programme director for electricity at the Pembina Institute, a Calgary-based clean-energy think-tank. It can scrap its money-spinning oil sands, or it can clean up its own electricity mix.

Put like that, replacing Alberta’s coal-fired plants with renewables seems an obvious choice. “Even the previous government may have been starting to recognise that, but they just took forever to do anything about it,” Thibault says.

In pivoting towards renewables, Notley will not face the kind of uniform corporate opposition that might be expected in Alberta. One distinctive feature of Canada’s renewables industry is that many of its largest players are also major fossil-fuel companies — including TransCanada, Suncor, TransAlta and Enbridge.

Companies that own large coal plants in Alberta — such as TransAlta and Capital Power — may not be happy to see the province quit coal, even if they’re investing heavily in renewables elsewhere in Canada. But other large Alberta-based energy companies, including those knee-deep in the oil sands, may quietly welcome the change.

In addition to seeing an opportunity for new investment, such companies may have an ulterior motive: Some energy experts believe that a greening of Alberta’s grid could help the province open up export markets for its fossil fuels.

With the NDP in power, “no-one will accuse Alberta of having a tight partnership between government and industry”, Bob Page, former vice-president for sustainability at TransAlta, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “I think that will help speed regulatory approvals for projects like [TransCanada’s] East Energy pipeline.”

Even Notley, speaking on election night, said her aim was not to dismantle Alberta’s energy sector but to re-angle it so “we build bridges and we open markets, instead of having a black eye”.

With the right policy signals finally in place, Alberta’s renewables market — both wind and solar — could take off quickly.

“There’s a lot of megawatts out there that are partially developed, if you will,” says Arnold. “The cost of wind power is competitive with virtually any newbuild in the market. And solar has moved radically in price. We think it will be competitive in Alberta in the near term.”

Oil prices will rebound at some point, and with them Alberta’s growing demand for power. The oil sands — the world’s third-largest proven reserve of crude — are “very much a tailwind” for renewables, says Luison.

Many of the problems plaguing Alberta’s wind sector will soften over time. The challenge of geographic concentration, for example, is waning as specialist low-wind turbines come to market, allowing developers to conquer new regions.

Even Alberta’s spot market may eventually be a boon for renewables, allowing developers to build projects whenever they’re deemed competitive, without having to wait for bid-in rounds like those now favoured by Ontario.

Meanwhile, the uncertainty hanging over other Canadian provincial wind markets will steer developers towards Alberta, says Hornung. “If Alberta emerges as a market with a well-defined opportunity, people will gravitate towards that.”

For now, all eyes are on Notley and Alberta’s upcoming climate strategy. “We’re hopeful,” says Arnold, a born and bred Albertan who once worked for Suncor.

“There’s tremendous opportunity in Alberta,” he says. “We’ll be here when the market’s ready.”